COVENTRY – The Town of Coventry is considering an offer to grant an easement for the construction of a gas pipeline along the edge of property it owns.

Nornew, Inc., the primary player in Chenango County’s budding natural gas industry, has offered the town a one-time fee of $76,000 for the roughly 3,800 foot linear right of way.

“We received an offer, a request, to grant a right of way for a gas pipeline,” said Town Supervisor Janice O’Shea, as she explained the preliminary offer at last week’s town board meeting.

The parcel in question encompasses 144 wooded acres off Wylie-Horton Road Extension, a seasonal roadway accessed from County Route 235. The land was deeded to the Town of Coventry by Chenango County in the early 1990s. The proposed route would run in proximity to the bordering seasonal road.

According to O’Shea, Nornew’s proposal was thorough. “They have pretty much covered everything we’d be asking,” she said.

The initial communication described the pipeline easement as 50 feet wide during the construction phase, 30 feet wide thereafter. The pipeline itself would be around 12 inches in diameter and be buried roughly 40 inches below the surface. The exact route would follow the “area of least interference.”